


Liar, Liar

by kanadka



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Family, Fantine Lives, Fix-It, Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-22
Updated: 2016-01-22
Packaged: 2018-05-15 12:45:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5785795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kanadka/pseuds/kanadka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How Fantine was able to keep her child (and her hair, and her teeth, and her mind) in a place like Montreuil-sur-Mer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Liar, Liar

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sonotadream](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sonotadream/gifts).



> Treat for [chocolatebox2015](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/chocolatebox2015). Brick!canon only, but I think it should be close enough!

Here was the thing:

Three days before Fantine met that wretch of a scoundrel of a madame Thénardier, Éponine took it into her heart to play outside. Mme Thénardier adored her daughters and could not deny them anything, so off Éponine went. Azelma laid sleeping in the crib, and so Mme Thénardier amused herself watching the baby. She picked up her book anew.

But this time there is one small difference - call it a whim of the nature of the world, that sometimes things repeat themselves not precisely so - and the difference percolated. Mme Thénardier allowed Éponine to play outside; this was so. The variant: she did not look up. The day was dark all day and this time, the detail of it becoming a little darker escaped her vision. She did not notice the clouds. If she had looked up, she would have seen the clouds, she would have been cautious of a storm, and Éponine would have been called into the inn homestead much earlier.

With glee, Éponine splashed in the puddles that soon form when the rain falls - what fun, what fun! And Mama was not watching so closely anymore, she was no longer there to tell her to stop, or not to dirty her gown, or do any of those things that little girls - those precious cherubs, those fragile petals, those coddled dolls - ought not to do. So Éponine got dirty. She lifted rocks to investigate what critters lived therebeneath and watched the bugs scurry about with utter fascination. A worm appeared. She poked it and an idea befell her to stick it in her mouth but it was smelly and did not taste very good so she put it back down. She wandered away and found a little stream, and in the stream a little frog. Catching the frog took another ten minutes' work. In short, adventurous Éponine was positively delighted.

Meanwhile, Mme Thénardier rocked Azelma softly with her foot, perfectly content, as her romance swelled to a particularly engrossing chapter, and in that chapter and the few that followed it Mme Thénardier forgot the rest of the world for a brief spell.

Only when she put the book away did she realise she heard rain. She panicked, then flew outside immediately to find Éponine, drenched and filthy, with a frog in her pocket.

It does not matter. The damage is done: Éponine has managed to contract a cold, and the symptoms appear the following day. A brief sickness. Nothing to a ten year old. Likely not serious to a two year old. But Mme Thénardier doted so over her girls and for the next week fussed over Éponine, who was _not_  allowed out of the house during her recovery.

This difference was enough that when Fantine passed through Montfermeil three days later, there was nobody outside the Thénardier inn, although the day was clear and beautiful. And Fantine walked on.

==

So it was to Montreuil-sur-Mer that Fantine recounted the story about the dead husband. It was not entirely a lie; Tholomyès was quite dead _to Fantine_. What pity she evoked in her situation! Fantine was gloriously, achingly beautiful: the woman who gave up everything for her daughter so that she may have ribbons and lace and finery. Meanwhile Fantine - exquisite Fantine - folded her curls in her bonnet and was clad in plain linen. A symbol of womanly modesty.

Such symbols have never deterred men in history, and this one too did not deter them. People still notice a beautiful woman even if she covers herself head to toe, and so the lecherous eyes of the men of Montreuil-sur-Mer swivelled her way. But it is much harder to steal a heart when it is already given away, and there was Cosette, the recipient of it, in Fantine's arms. Fantine ignored them. In truth, she did not even notice them.

This caused some anger. Men do not like to be ignored. She thinks herself superior to them, they believed. They embittered slowly.

But Cosette had the biggest eyes and the loveliest smile and the sweetest little hands, a lively fat healthy child. How could the people of Montreuil-sur-Mer hate a mother like Fantine with a daughter like Cosette?

What luck that Cosette was a daughter! For she could accompany her mother to work in the warehouse, as the workrooms were separated by sexes.

"Are you an honest woman?" Father Madeleine asked of all his female employees. "Your husband truly has died?" These were his conditions, and on these he was inflexible.

"Yes," lied Fantine, finding the strength for deception as she watched Cosette play in the corner.

==

Not all, however, found it so easy to love Fantine, and if not Fantine, then Cosette. Some people have the peculiar manner of birds. Like sparrows, singing sweetly, but incessantly. Like crows, loud cackling. Like owls, whooping. Like magpies, spying. These beaks could not be shut.

"What of that husband of yours? You never speak of him."

"I am in mourning," said Fantine. "I am always in mourning for what I lost."

"You don't seem sad."

"When I do, I think of my daughter," said Fantine.

"You don't wear black."

"Should a mother wear nothing but black around a bright young girl?" Fantine entreated. "My daughter must see colour, even if I no longer delight in it."

These and countless other questions were put to her. To all of them, Fantine answered with half-truths where it was possible and full-lies where it was not. For a few, she gave no reply at all.

"What was his name? Describe him for us! Did he look very much like we do? How long were you married? You don't seem old enough to have been married long. Are you certain you are still mourning? When will you stop mourning him?"

Silence.

==

No one remembered Fantine, formerly of Montreuil-sur-Mer herself, having left it a decade earlier, when the town had fallen into disrepute. Upon its resurrection by M. Madeleine - who, despite having become _maire_ , his workers still called 'Father' - there was no one left to make the recognition and Fantine was utterly unknown. This was both a boon and a curse. She found no old friends, but no one knew what happened in Paris. Paris is big enough a city that one girl's fault is easily eclipsed by so many others. Fantine's story was Silette's, was Adélie's, was Capucine's, was Ozanne's, was any number of girls that men have preyed upon. In their numbers there is some anonymity.

"Why don't you know your letters, if you spent ten years in Paris?"

"What need have I of learning letters," mused Fantine, "when what I should learn is this jet trade?" For she was a newcomer to it and therefore merely moderately good a workwoman. "Who have I got to write letters to?" For her daughter was with her, and her husband was dead. She began to believe it more strongly.

In this way, Fantine - who knew no letters but could manage her money - earned enough to make a living for her and Cosette. Anything the angel wanted, she received, sometimes at the expense of Fantine herself. A mother like Fantine does not progress with haste to mend the small holes in her own stockings when a child like Cosette begs for a doll. What use had Fantine for a mirror when she laid eyes on the prettiest creature in the world?

Fantine was watched in the women's workroom, with some jealousy, but she was fully ignorant too of this; she did not notice. Without knowing, Fantine eluded their suspicions for a great long time. Her heart was light, her gaiety profound, for Cosette was home. And so Mme Victurnien - that predatory malice who, in another lifetime, in another story, pecked the public letter writer's loose tongue to divulge the secrets of Fantine's letters, then flew briefly to Montfermeil to spy a lark in order to discredit Fantine and eject her from M. le Maire's factory - could not find the branches to complete her nest of suspicion.

==

As charming as Cosette was, when she grew old enough to attend the school in the lower town, she no longer accompanied her mother to work, and it began to be said in an undertone in the women's workroom that Fantine "had ways about her". Fantine's crypticity could not keep the vultures at bay forever.

Fantine was not rich. She and Cosette had a small apartment, little furnished. What furniture she had came piece by piece. This month, a chair; the next, a cupboard. It took three months to pay off the stove but these three months were December, January and February, and so she paid them gladly. Cosette did not shiver. Cosette had a fine new wool coat. Fantine had no coat at all, and above other matters, a poor constitution.

Fantine grew ill, and by March had had to send for the doctor, for she had contracted pneumonia. Upon the diagnosis, the doctor had plucked Cosette from her room and separated them, that the child might not share in the disease of the mother, and Fantine was looked after by others for three days in the hospital until the fever broke.

During these three days she muttered many things that upon waking she did not remember having spoken. But the nurses recalled them, and of the nurses, two were pliable enough that truths could be coaxed from them, whether with money or spirit. From there, it was a conflagration.

The entrapment finally complete, Fantine's fault became clear: she had not married, Cosette was a bastard, and she had lied about these and more facts since the moment she stepped into Montreuil-sur-Mer. At last, the truth emerged. Veritas vincit.

Montreuil-sur-Mer was inflamed with vindictive rage.

==

When Fantine returned to work, she was greeted by the elderly spinster that M. Madeleine had appointed to the women's workroom, and in whom he had placed his full confidence. Since he had become mayor, M. Madeleine spent far more time in the  _mairie_ , and did not, as a rule, enter the women's workroom. This superintendent, who had been recommended to him by the priest as a woman of character, honour, and respect, was in fact the same woman who had participated gleefully in the tumbleweed of talk about beautiful modest Fantine, and had squawked riotous laughter at the news of Cosette's parentage.

When Fantine asked what was happening, the superintendent informed her only that she would not be working today, that in fact her services were no longer required, gave her fifty francs, and showed her the door.

When Fantine continued to persist that she did not understand - since she had no recollection of what she had discussed in the heat of her fever, nor that her disgrace had been strewn about the town as she slept - the spinster relented at last, and bid her wait on the chair, while she went to speak to M. Madeleine.

Only then did it strike Fantine that in the room, a great many more eyes were looking at her, and a great many more matters were being whispered behind cupped hands.

But it had been over two years, Cosette was now turning five, and Fantine had managed to keep their secret this long. It did not occur to her what trouble she might have been in.

"He'll talk to you," said the spinster, having returned, "and then you'll go."

Fantine nodded, and left for M. Madeleine's office.

==

M. Madeleine was a gentleman, younger than she would have suspected given the news of his success, but possessing a grace that belied age. He could have been forty; he could have been sixty. It struck her that he could also have been handsome, but his face was lined and his hair a brilliant white.

"You lied to me," he said seriously, and Fantine's face fell. In that moment it impressed upon her what this was all about. Somehow, she had been discovered.

She lowered her gaze, swallowed once and took a deep breath. "How else could I have found work in a town like this, if I hadn't?" she asked.

"You were deceitful," said M. Madeleine.

"I had no choice," Fantine said.

"You don't deny it, then?"

Fantine shook her head.

The following words she uttered without thought, without care, and for that reason, they were perhaps the truest things she had said upon returning to Montreuil-sur-Mer. She had no idea then that these words would save her, that they would be precisely the testimony that a man like M. Madeleine - of whom she thought very seldom if ever, and knew even less - required hearing to impose his judgment.

She mustered her strength, and began, and as she spoke her voice grew from unsteady to inviolable.

"I did it for my child, Monsieur," said Fantine. "And if I had to pick again, I should choose deception a second time. I would do anything for her. You admonish me for my lies, but you don't realise that I would more than merely lie, I would steal for her to eat, I would arm myself in her defence, I would hurt those who sought her harm, I would lay down my life for her. I was made for her, and as long as I live I shall care for her, and I shall let nothing take her from me except God himself."

At this, M. Madeleine narrowed his eyes, which lent him a shrewd look, and said quietly, "Tell me of her."

So she did. For the next ten minutes she spoke of nothing but Cosette, babbling about her child as proud mothers do, all the wondrously clever things she did and said, and at the end of those ten minutes M. Madeleine held up a hand and said, "You may continue to work."

It was unbelievable. Who knew why this great man had made an exception? And why the exception should be made for her? Not Fantine. But this day, only just begun, had been so queer and strange that it had passed like a dream to Fantine, and instead of argue, she only said, "Thank you, Father Madeleine," and curtsied.

That was the end of the matter. The birdsong ceased.


End file.
